Why solar energy hasn’t caught up yet?

Shashwat Vaish

Solar energy is the energy released from the sun in the form of heat that can be used for various purposes like solar heating and artificial photosynthesis. One of the most important applications of solar energy is to convert it to electricity by using photovoltaic cells (also known as solar cells).

There has been a great deal of interest and research in this particular field, due to the ever-rising global warming and the harm that using conventional sources of fuel, such as burning of fossil fuels, does to the environment. On the other hand, solar energy is a clean source of fuel which does not pollute the environment as it does not have any harmful by-products and is a renewable source of energy.

But, what’s surprising is that the concept and applications of solar energy has still not been taken up by majority of the people. There are a few things which prevent people from tapping into this huge potential of energy utilisation.

The cost is too high.

This is the major issue that people face. Even though developments in technology are bringing the prices of solar panels down, the cost of installation, maintenance and storage is still too high. Even if there are government subsidies, people don’t want to spend huge amounts of money.

What to look for?

People are confused as to what makes a solar panel good. They want to buy something that satisfies their energy consumption needs and they must also feel good about buying them. But this doesn’t happen as they don’t know what to look for in solar panels and are worried that people might take advantage of this fact and they will not get a good product.

Efficiency concerns.

As it is quite obvious, the solar panels produce energy only during the daytime - when the earth receives sunlight. People don’t want to invest in something that will only work half of the day. There are also other factors such as cloud cover, dirt on the solar panels and trees in the area that dampen the efficiency of the solar panels.

Convenience.

Newton rightly pointed out that an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts on it. People are already used to conventional sources of fuel and these fuels easily meet their energy demands and are easily available to them too. They don’t want to change to something that they have never experienced before.

Even though there are all these issues, they aren’t something that should stop people from investing in solar energy. Spreading awareness about solar energy and the ways to combat these issues can really help this market grow. There are alternative payment methods such as EMI, which will help people by paying only in instalments and not spend a large sum of money in one go. There are certified dealers who will provide quality solar panels and they have various attractive offers which take care of maintenance along with installation. Storage issues have been reduced by government by them taking the extra units of electricity produced in addition to the subsidised rates that they are providing.

These benefits that solar panels provide far outweigh the concerns that people have. There should be a collective effort to introduce this technology into the houses of the public as this will benefit the environment.

Let us know your opinion on solar energy and its potential in the comments below!